A lab for loads
Testing the effect of loading on large structures has long been a part of the teaching curriculum and research program in the Department of Civil, Construction, and Environmental Engineering (CCEE).
In this photo, taken around 1949, Dr. Charles R. Bramer, right, works on an investigation of wood truss member tension splices joined with split-ring connectors using the department’s universal testing machine. The photo was taken in the department’s former structures and materials lab located in “old” Mann Hall, now the east wing of Daniels Hall on North Campus.
The machine, manufactured by Baldwin-Southwark Corporation in 1947, could be used for either tension or compression testing.
While the control system that works with it has been replaced several times, the vertical frame shown in the photo is still used in undergraduate teaching labs in room 100 of “new” Mann Hall, built in 1962 and CCEE’s current home. When the department makes the move in the next few years to the planned Engineering Building Oval on NC State’s Centennial Campus, the versatile testing frame is expected to go with it.
Bramer taught in the Department of Civil Engineering from 1930 to 1975. He was acting head of the department in 1948-49 before Dr. Ralph Fadum’s hiring as department head in 1949, and again in 1962-65 after Fadum became dean of engineering in 1962.
Today, CCEE faculty members and students can test large structures in the Constructed Facilities Laboratory (CFL) on Centennial Campus. The idea for the CFL, one of the premier facilities of its kind in the United States, started in the late 1970s with a discussion between Dr. Paul Zia, then the department head in civil engineering, and Dr. Larry Monteith, the dean of engineering.
Zia identified a need for large-scale structural testing in a new lab that would provide space that the basement of Mann Hall could not. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr.’s decision in 1983 to designate state land for the university to create Centennial Campus provided the space needed for the College to expand its research facilities.
Opened in 1996, the CFL now hosts projects in collaboration with researchers from around the globe.
Learn more about the CFL. It’s the focus of this issue’s In Our Labs feature.
Return to contents or download the Spring/Summer 2017 NC State Engineering magazine (PDF, 3.7MB).
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